Okay, flash is fun.  It’s succinct and charming, but MAN, it is not going to get me into the HWA!  Luckily the last two pieces that I’ve been working on are longer, although they won’t get me into the HWA, either.  They’re both sad realistic pieces, and I have no idea where that is coming from. Normally I have a thing against reality.

I received a rejection that crippled me!  All right, so it didn’t, but it knocked me right out of the running for one of my other contests.  The one that I was two rounds ahead in?  Not anymore.  I kicked and stewed and generally felt sorry for myself until I received a delightfully irate email from my competitor saying that he’d been axed as well.  ALL RIGHT!  That piece also wouldn’t have gotten me into the HWA.  I have to work very hard for this membership, that’s for sure. No skating on this one.  My pieces are all over the place (fantasy, horror-ish, essays) and now these almost literary realism stories.  Cripes, this might take me a while!  But it feels good to write.  I’ve been too scattered lately, so this totally rocks.

Speaking of horror, you guys should totally hop on over to visit the Shock Totem forums!  I’m on there all of the time, no joke!  I’ve never really been into forums before, but there’s a really nice group over there, so I stuck around.  They’re a professional pay magazine, their debut magazine should be out next week or so, and I have a piece in there called “Murder for Beginners”, which I’m really proud of.  And it should actually count toward HWA!  Woo!  Anyway, support these guys, if you so desire, because they’re good peeps.  I threatened to hit them on the head with a shovel, and they still accepted my story.

Also, my ultra-short “Evanescent” went up at 50 to 1 yesterday.  You can see that here.  This…also won’t get me into the HWA.  😉